By ZACH SCHONBRUN

August 12, 2014

They went down with elbow injuries within 15 days of each other last August, Matt Harvey and Jeremy Hefner, two young Mets pitchers with vastly different backgrounds who found themselves staring at the same long road to recovery.

Hefner was first. He felt the pinch of an elbow injury after a start on Aug. 9, 2013, in the middle of a stretch in which he had won four of seven games. But news of his subsequent Tommy John surgery went largely unnoticed.

That’s because, on Aug. 24, Harvey complained of forearm soreness after a start against Detroit, and the Mets’ world went spinning.

From the outset, there was always something hopeful for Harvey to glean from Hefner, who had his surgery late last August, about two months before Harvey’s own Tommy John procedure in October. Far less heralded, Hefner quietly went about his business repairing his arm, away from the bright spotlight that Harvey commanded. Hefner, too, stated his intention to pitch in 2014. In fact, he was nearing that point.

But during his sixth rehabilitation start for Class A Port St. Lucie on Wednesday, Hefner experienced a drastic setback, reinjuring his ulnar collateral ligament, which may mean yet another reconstructive elbow surgery.

And the Mets could only shudder to think, “What if this were Harvey?”

“His is a cautionary story for others,” General Manager Sandy Alderson said of Hefner, “including Matt Harvey.”

The dynamic between the cautious Mets front office and the precocious 25-year-old ace Harvey has been a complex subplot throughout his monthslong recovery. Harvey has been forthright in his determination to pitch for the Mets in 2014. Mets management has been equally steadfast in restraining his enthusiasm.

Harvey is, after all, the team’s most precious commodity, and each proclamation about his impending return was echoed by Alderson’s measured refrain, “Not so fast.”

On Tuesday, Alderson put a much bolder strike through Harvey’s expectations of pitching at some point in the 2014 season and even suggested that he might not even pitch in any other setting until spring training of next year.

Some of Alderson’s more defined stance seemed to come from the impact of Hefner’s setback. Alderson added that there was no indication that Hefner had done anything wrong with his rehab, or that Harvey should change his method of recovery.

“Who knows if anyone is doing everything right?” Alderson said. “There’s so little direction on these things, other than the passage of time and laying off.”

Hefner’s recovery effort was not even especially aggressive, Alderson said. A 28-year-old right-hander, Hefner was approaching the first anniversary of his surgery, which is a standard benchmark for returning. When he progressed from bullpens and throwing live batting practices to pitching in actual games, however, something snapped.

“Our doctors have told us this is a pretty rare occurrence,” Alderson said. “But, obviously, this can happen.”

Harvey had yet to throw a bullpen session; he just recently started tossing from the mound. His stated aim was to return to pitch for the Mets in September, or at least throw in some competitive games in the fall, whether in the Arizona league or instructional baseball in Florida. Alderson said he planned to speak with Harvey about the matter and indicated that Harvey, in fact, might not start pitching in games until next spring.

“I think it’s important that Matt feel comfortable going into spring training, that what he’s done previously set him up for success in 2015,” Alderson said.

There are scares seemingly around every corner these days for the Mets. They placed the promising rookie Jacob deGrom on the 15-day disabled list on Sunday with shoulder tendinitis, although Alderson felt confident deGrom would not require a longer stay than the minimum allotment.

Before Tuesday’s game, deGrom said he was relieved by a doctor’s report after receiving a magnetic resonance imaging examination.

“I felt good all year, and then that happened,” deGrom said. “I didn’t think anything was serious. I just kind of gave them a heads-up. So I think it’s more precautionary, so it doesn’t go into anything else where it could be more serious.”